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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22711189">Everything we are</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered'>withered</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>liminal space [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bleach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Intimacy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:07:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22711189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no big conversation to be had about <em>what they are </em>when everything's over. With them, it's always been a soul-level kind of understanding, but the day it’s cemented for Ichigo that they aren’t, at the very least, just friends is the day they sleep together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>liminal space [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1413535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Everything we are</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A request by Anon on tumblr</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>There's no big conversation to be had about <em>what they are </em>when everything's over. With them, it's always been a soul-level kind of understanding, but the day it’s cemented for Ichigo that they aren’t, at the very least, just friends is the day they sleep together.</p><p>Like everything else with Rukia, what's supposed to be an unpredictable turn of events, meant to be an awkward combination of being overly familiar and comfortable around one another, and having few sense of boundaries; actually feels more like the natural progression of things.</p><p>Gradual like the change of a season; inevitable like the force of gravity.</p><p>Their every push and pull is familiar; tides tugged by the moon, flowers drawn to the sun.</p><p>It’s easy to get lost in it: the relieved exhales and approving murmurs against expanses of warm, welcoming skin; the breathless sighs, the teasing nips, the hapless grins that make their kisses all the sweeter.</p><p>It didn’t feel weird in the slightest to know what Rukia tasted like between her lips, between her thighs; how she felt beneath his palms and how he felt beneath hers; or what the color of her eyes were when they were delighted, when they were ravenous; and how the tip of her nose felt against his cheek when they were pressed so close together, how her smile curved so easily against his.</p><p>It all felt more like a picture being complete as if he’d always been missing those parts of her this whole time, and was simply waiting for the right moment to be shown all the new ways in which to love her.</p><p>He’s only startled, really, when she pulls away. Despite that, he lets her go, easy as anything though his hands curl lightly at her arms, quietly asking her to stay anyway.</p><p>But Rukia just smiles, cheeks pink and eyes bright, awash in the afternoon sun drenching their spent sheets, expression fond even as she teases him for it. And he’ll smirk even though it’s too soft and sappy, and guide her gently back to press their lips together because wherever she’s going, it can wait for one more kiss and another, and another.</p><p>Ichigo would bottle up her happiness for the way it makes him feel like he’s got sunshine pouring out of him, but he’d rather experience it in person for the hand she cradles against his cheek and the way she nudges their foreheads and noses together, for the thrum of safety and home and <em>finallyfinallyfinally</em>.</p><p>They don’t talk about what they are - what they've become - perhaps, what they'd always been.</p><p>But then again, they don’t really need to.</p><p> </p>
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